Dreaming Deep Tonight
by liesincrayon
Summary: Eames/Arthur, Sheppard/McKay Warnings: LANGUAGE, sexual content, violence. "John could have saved them all a lot of time if Arthur would just give a little bit more detail in his text messages."
1. Chapter 1

As you can read from the category, this is a crossover of SGA and Inception. Furthermore this is not just regular SGA but is Vegas-verse SGA. Like you know, that one episode in the last season that is an AU. That Vegas. No beta as usual because I am a hack and not a real writer. Also this is all Soka's fault, I don't remember why anymore but it is, and I love her for it, and also for capslock in MSN urging me to continue. Originally this came from a LJ Prompt but I was like NO VEGAS IS MOAR BETTAH. idek anymore. Also I probably got so much wrong and fff- :c Trend of naming things after songs continues going strong.

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After it all he'd turned them down, he probably shouldn't have, they had saved his life and all that, hadn't managed to drop bombs right on top of him. McKay had come through, dragging a rescue crew out into the baking desert sun to pull him back from the edge of death. But John had been all about spitting in the face of convention ever since they'd kicked him and taken the sky from him. He wasn't about to get back under the heel of the Air Force that readily.

They'd made it impossible for him to go back to work after that, being truthful, he had to admit, he'd made it pretty damn impossible too, Vegas was a dead-zone unless he wanted to go into private work, and the government would have made that hell. So he went to Mexico, took the cash that somehow got overlooked, and drove to fucking nowhere.

He would probably be dead by now if it were not for Arthur, being truthful, which didn't happen very often for John, he owed a lot of loyalty to Arthur. He had no fucking idea what the kid's last name was, only that sometimes he gave the name "Loveless" or "Goulding" when paying for hotels, and that there was no way in hell that either of those names were really Arthur's last name. If it weren't for the kid though, John would be in a ditch dead, or out of a duffel-bag full of cash. As it was Arthur had kept him from gambling all his money away. He still wasn't sure how Arthur found him, or why, only that about a week into an endless drunken night of boozing and cards he'd found himself unhappily sober in a bathtub full of ice with a suture wound where a bullet had been not but a few hours prior.

Arthur had nursed him through the infection, fed him, clothed him, and stolen every last fucking cent from him and put it in a bank account John couldn't actually touch. John may have really wanted to fuck Arthur up against a wall by the time the fevers had faded, but by then he was also aware enough that Arthur could and would kill him with the spoon he'd been feeding John soup with. So he owed a lot to Arthur, and when the kid offered him a job, he accepted without asking the details. He probably should have though.

John found he was actually pretty good at extraction work, his early youth spent being groomed for business gave him a nice edge, an insider's view on the way that world worked. His years on the VPD had opened up a whole language of tells and lies and he had the best poker face around. Well almost best, fuck if he could read Arthur, or even tried to. After the first time Arthur smirked at him and then shot him between the eyes, he just stopped trying, he didn't want to know really, and he had the opinion that anyone who did want to know was fucking crazy.

Arthur introduced him to the life of Extraction, made him a jet-setter, and above all gave him something to do with himself. After the first year John started taking jobs on his own, and Arthur finally gave him back his money, let the bird fly from the roost. By then John didn't want to fuck Arthur anymore, he'd seen what that body was capable of, and John liked living. But whenever Arthur called, John stopped what he was doing and listened, and Arthur could be depended on to give information on who in the industry John should stay away from.

He liked the work, liked getting into other people's heads and learning them from the inside out, he was good at it, and even though five years ago he would have rather took a bullet then do this kind of immoral work, he just didn't care anymore. They took secrets, cut through lies, sometimes once he was working on his own he even built lies on purpose. Did pleasure-sector work, building fantasy realities for people, sometimes he slummed enough to be the main attraction for certain high paying clientele. Arthur was not particularly happy when he found out, but Arthur was off the map by then, calling him from throw-away phones to frown at him vocally. He hadn't signed up for a mother though, and tended to hang up on the kid when he got too righteous.

Arthur had taught him, but John still lived his own life, and if he was currently slumming as a dream-whore, it was none of the kid's business anyway, and Arthur was a kid to John. Young and baby-faced, and maybe deadlier than most of the people John had met in his rather bumpy life-journey. Arthur who was a world away didn't have any power to make John stop, and even though he owed the kid everything, after that first call, he maybe did it just to spite him. Arthur who was off in New York studying Design, because Arthur was a fucking genius, and somehow trusted John enough to tell him where to reach him if everything went to shit and he needed someone to hide him.

By the time he'd been freelancing on his own for awhile, he'd compiled enough information to know that Arthur had probably been doing this since the beginning and that he was the best Point in the business. Somehow after everything, Lady Luck had smiled on him and dealt him a winning hand. Which meant everything would have to come crashing down sometime. He really didn't want to have to come crawling to Arthur after all this, but when you get on that self-destructive track, it gets hard to pull yourself off again apparently. He had stopped drinking though, that was something at least right?


	2. Chapter 2

There are two weeks till the end of the semester, he has had three hours and forty five minutes of sleep in the past three days, he has seven projects to finish, he has called Cobb twice in the past week, emailed Ariadne seven times in the last forty eight hours, Ariadne has responded six times, he has gone out to lunch with friends twice in the last three days, he has seven dollars and forty five cents left on his Starbucks card, and he has had to change his cat's diet twice in the last seven days.

Arthur curls up on the bus-seat, hugs the messenger bag on his lap, and closes his eyes. He just -listens-, listens to the thrum of the bus engine, listens to the sound of the traffic a dull hum under the sound of that massive engine. He just listens to it all for two minutes, he doesn't need to count seconds, it passes and then he is getting out his iPod and closing his eyes again. He leans against the window and lets the vibrations, the inertia of the bus run through him and lets go a little. The day behind him becomes a blur, he knows the sun is setting, but for a little while, everything is timeless to him.

He's on edge, but he's always on edge, even though you'd never know it to look at him. His friends know nothing, they are intellectuals, they sip wine at social gatherings and update their Facebook status a dozen times a day. They aren't really friends but are people Arthur has cultivated to create the illusion of a normal college student. He looks young enough to pass for someone their age, fresh faced and naive. They serve their purpose though, as does the apartment, the cat, the thick rimmed-glasses. He is the easy mark, the art student with the oversize sweater-vest that hangs off his shoulders because he's too thin and doesn't eat enough. His hands are thin and suited for paintbrushes and pencils, not guns, not needles. No one now would look at him and think he knows intimately how to work a PASIV. No one but those he's worked for, and even some of them would look twice, wouldn't think this is the consummate professional.

He is still comfortable in this skin, in this lie, it's a little closer to who he is at home, buttons undone, loose t-shirts, un-brushed hair. But just far enough away from the truth to protect him. He counter-balances with the bus, it is natural movement, unconscious, he pushes back as the bus pulls to a stop, rocks forward as the bus rocks back to keep his core steady. The doors slide open, he cannot hear them, or see it, but he knows the tempo of this pause, someone is getting on the bus, paying the driver, little coins tinkling into the machine, the pause is too long for someone with a bus-pass. He takes a deep breath as the bus moves forward again. When he got on, the bus was empty save for the driver, he is relatively safe in his belief that he would remain isolated at the back of the bus.

When warm weight settles against his thigh his eyes open slowly, no alarm displayed, but his pupils dilate, and he's immediately paused his music. He isn't expecting the full-lips, the wondering blue-gray eyes that are too familiar drinking him in like someone starved. Arthur bites down the growl that is working it's way through him, and pulls out his ear-buds. "Mr. Eames." It is a question, an accusation, a greeting all in one, he is the professional now, and suddenly feels naked in the garb of the college student, he hates Eames a little bit for making him feel that way. He wants to curse, to rail, to lash out at Eames for showing up -here- where he doesn't fucking belong, where he has no right.

"Darling, you look tired." There is no teasing and no worry to the tone, merely a statement. "Let me take you for a coffee." Eames reaches up and tugs the pull-cord for the next stop, doesn't even wait for Arthur to respond, which doesn't surprise Arthur at all because Eames is an ass. Because Eames knows Arthur is going to go anyway, because if he wasn't going to, he would have already pulled the cord himself and gotten away from Eames, would have run and packed up and moved to a different college. He feels so naked in these clothes, like Eames can see right through him, read him like a book, he'd been so comfortable before, and now Eames knows just that much more about him. The damage has already been done though, and Eames already knows he's coming, so when the bus stops he raises with Eames and exits far before he usually does.

They go to Starbucks, because it was established long ago that Arthur really likes over-priced tea and drinks it like water, mostly because tea is safer than water in most of the locations he may end up at. Eames pays as promised sitting them down in a secluded corner with overly comfortable chairs that Arthur curls up in on a regular enough basis to know the exact perfect spot for maximum comfort. He puts his bag between them like a shield and sits with horrible posture, sipping at his iced coffee without grace or elegance because fuck if Eames is there, he is still a college student right now.

Eames smiles at him pleasantly, it is meant to put Arthur at ease but it never has and tends to have the opposite effect and sometimes Arthur is aware that Eames does it on purpose because he knows it never works. "You are incredibly difficult to find Arthur, you little fox." Eames teases and out of everything maybe that calms Arthur down the most. Some of the tension fades from his shoulders, he takes a more refined sip of his coffee. "I told Ariadne not to give you her contact information." Arthur scowls at Eames, already his ire is fading, replaced with piqued interest. "What did you bribe her with, lunch?" He narrows his eyes a little at the Brit, masking his quick study with annoyance.

Eames looks good, he's tanned a little more since Arthur last saw him, lost a little weight. His hair has been cut a bit shorter, his suit fits well. The cloth is expensive, but it is also a horrible eggplant color with green paisley that offends the design student in Arthur. "Brunch actually, she supplied the city but I had to do the rest of the leg work." Eames studies a painting on the wall, but Arthur knows better, knows that Eames is studying the barrista instead, picking apart their mannerisms because it's just not something you can turn off. Just like Arthur cannot turn off the details, cannot just stop counting and calculating and looking for optimum efficiency. He's not obsessive compulsive, he doesn't arrange his silverware, doesn't have to be impeccably neat in real life, because you -cant- be and he learned that a long time ago, but the tendencies are there, floating right under the surface, and fuck if Arthur is not perfect efficiency on a job, is not a machine of order and details, and not a soul would claim Arthur isn't the consummate professional in dreams, perfect and pristine, quick-thinking, ace.

But he is not on a job here, he is a student pure and simple, he just wants to finish out this semester, choose classes for the next, get a degree, and then go back into the Extraction business, because by then Cobb will probably have grown tired of retirement and will be itching to do something small. He does not want Eames here, because the Brit is complicated and not part of his plans, because all Eames will do is take, and Arthur will give, because whatever it is, if he wasn't already going to bite, he would have walked away from Eames.

"What do you want Mr. Eames?" Arthur asks, cultivating a careful air of long-pressed patience, as if he were suffering Eames' presence and considering leaving with his coffee into the chill evening if Eames didn't hurry. He wouldn't of course, if Eames wanted to play games, he'd play them, and outlast Eames' patience, they'd been playing games all along, never saying what they meant, he couldn't just stop now.

"I need you on a job, you're the best, and I wouldn't trust anyone else." Arthur already knew what the words would be, he already knows he's going to say yes, going to skip out on the last few weeks of the semester, going to send his cat to Cobb's daughter, going to pack up this carefully orchestrated lie and waste all the time he's spent and he hates Eames, because Eames knows he's going to do it too.

He's got his sketchbook out and is scribbling details, numbers, contacts on crisp pages that should have held life-studies. They move from the coffee-shop to Eames' hotel room when the details get too thick, too dangerous. Finally Arthur sleeps, really sleeps, curled up in the hotel bed with the smell of Eames on the sheets and the man making phone calls near the window. He's safe here, and that last little bit of tension fades away. In the morning he'll build a team for them, call his contacts, pull some strings, they had a lot of work to do, extracting from government contractors was always tricky business.

But that would wait, for now he would sleep, because Eames is right there to watch his back. Next time he'd make it harder for the Forger to track him down, "Arthur E. Darling" had been much too easy to find.


	3. Chapter 3

John could have saved them all a lot of time if Arthur would just give a little bit more detail in his text messages. Well he could have saved himself from a eight hour flight at least with a snotty kid kicking the back of his seat and the snap of bitter Russian winter. He could have still been in Cairo watching political climate heat up and waiting for the highest bidder in an intellectual shit-storm.

But no, Arthur is professional, which means paranoid, so it isn't till he's there, breath puffing out frozen in a warehouse with no fucking heat, that he finds out their target is Rodney McKay. Rodney with the too-bright blue eyes, with the acidic wit, Rodney who had looked at John and seen right through him, seen all the imperfections, read case files and had -wanted- John. Wanted all the broken bits and the gene, and John knew better, he knew Rodney wanted something from John that was more then the gene too, something he'd seen in that alternate universe's John he'd spoken of.

Arthur wouldn't let him wriggle out of it either, John was going to do shit work, behind the scenes shit if he had to, but he was there for the long-haul, because he'd already been paid, and Arthur didn't have time to find another team member he could trust to get work done, even if it was the crap work. So John was freezing in front of a tiny meat-house heater, that did pretty much nothing to warm him, and was writing a preliminary profile of McKay for Eames.

John was pretty sure Eames was insane also. "Darling do you think I should wear this tie or the one from yesterday to the interview?" Eames is holding up two ties, one is plain black with small silver accents, the other has little pink apples all over it, John tries not to look amused, but most of the time he has a permanent look of bemusement, so he pretty much immediately fails.

"Mr. Eames. I am working." Arthur doesn't bother looking up, is tapping up a storm on the keyboard, and John is pretty much thanking god, because the apples would have been it, Eames would be dead, and then -he- would have to learn how to forge, which Arthur had been trying to teach him with successive failure rates since the beginning. John tries to look busy, because of course Eames targets him next for amusement. "Sheppard, want to go for a ride?" The question is surprising, Eames lounges against John's desk, Eames has perfect posture, he isn't slouching, Arthur slouches and balances chairs, Eames doesn't, John is still trying to figure out how this fits in with everything, because really it -should- be the other way around.

"He's working too." Arthur warns, finally looking up briefly to give a glare and he looks so hard-pressed. "Not the apples Mr. Eames." Arthur doesn't miss a beat, and doesn't show emotion, but there is a lightening of the tension in Arthur's shoulders that tells John a bit more about the kid then he probably ought to have known, and also made him take back his theory that Eames is insane.

"Lunch Arthur." Eames drawls out turning to look at the Point-man, and John watches a small exchange, however silent. Watches a twitch at the corner of Arthur's thin-pressed lips, watches a softening in dark brown eyes. "Bring me something back." Arthur turns back to his work, and John is already standing. He's sick of looking up words on the internet for Arthur's fucking checklist of psychosis.

The heater in the car works much better filling the small space with dense heat. John did not like the cold, they were going to send him to Antarctica before they'd decided to just kick him, he might have quit right there. He's from SoCal, rides the waves, bakes in the heat and loves it, and this cold is fucking miserable. He states as much, Eames is silent, driving the car, and it breaks the silence. Eames laughs softly, the way he holds the steering wheel is practiced ease, but so is everything Eames does, it's all a show, and John is willing to bet Eames had been a different kind of intelligence gatherer at one point. "You do get used to it eventually, it can be pleasant." Eames is just driving, John figures this out when they pass by the usual eat-spot that served some kind of curry crap that Arthur ate like it was mana from heaven. John cannot imagine the cold as pleasant, just numbing, how it would work into his bones, dull his ability to think, bog him down in so much silence.

Maybe that would have been good after the mess he'd made of his career, after he lost everything in sand and came up gasping. McKay had pegged him, had read between the lines that not even the board who had stamped his discharge papers had seen. John wasn't stupid enough to think that McKay hadn't looked up the medic either. The scientist had given him that last layer of self-protection, changed the gender because if he hadn't John would have lost it.

He doesn't want to do this job, doesn't want to steal from the man who had offered him so much, but he would, because this was who he was now. Never let anyone get too close, never place loyalty for too long. Maybe one day he'd be taking on Arthur or Eames, this was who he was now. Loosing so much to the sand.

"Tell me about McKay." Eames orders, it sounds like a simple amiable request, but John knows better. He tells what he's managed to compile from memories, and then afterward. The mistress, the wedding wing, the smugness, and that emptiness, the desperation thinly veiled. Even as he's saying it all, he can feel himself loosing a bit more. Feels hollow by the time they are pulling into the restaurant parking lot.

He couldn't be what McKay had wanted him to be, never could have been.


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur is perched on Eames' bed, back against the headboard, he is doing a crossword puzzle and listening to the news in Russian, Eames is sitting at the foot of the bed eating left-over curry and not so much listening to the news as he is watching the reporters. When the program ends Arthur flicks off the television and waits for Eames to begin.

"I have a tentative idea, I'll have to compile a better profile once I get hired, but judging from Sheppard's commitment issues, it's likely this Meredith wanted more from him than to just give him a job in high clearance government contracting. He was near to bolting from the car just reliving the situation." Arthur looks up mid-way through Eames' statement. "Eight letters, a Shanghai Cocktail Ingredient." Arthur prompts, frowning.

"Anisette. I think I might try to forge your Sheppard, where did you pick him up anyway Darling, he seems hardly reliable." Arthur can hear the words spoken underneath the amiable drawl "I am jealous, he's dangerous, I don't like the way he looks at you." Arthur fills out the word, feeling a sense of accomplishment as the entire lower half of the puzzle is neat and orderly, complete.

They have been doing this for so long, lying and masking the truth, it's who they are now, and Arthur will not be the one to end the dance, he ignores Eames' displeasure. "Mexico." He states, only giving the barest details, it was none of Eames' business anyway.

"What can you tell me about him?" Eames prompts and Arthur puts down the crossword, stretches his legs out along the bed, avoiding Eames. "He's been erased from records, he served in the Air Force but has been expunged from the system. He is another ghost. He also has no idea who implemented the wipe. No birth records, nothing." Arthur knows there is no such person as E. Eames either, just more ghosts. "He is highly intelligent, you know that, and capable." Arthur adds, John may be a little unstable but he had far more of a moral compass than he liked to think. At least more of one than the two men currently talking about him, Arthur mused.

Eames who had tried to extract Arthur's identity from him after the third job they worked together, and then there had been the inception. No, out of the three of them, the only reason John might not be reliable would have to do with pushing some moral boundary. Whereas Eames would gamble away everything, and Arthur would drop anyone but Cobb in a moment's notice.

Arthur lets his eyes shut, rests his head back against the headboard and is quiet. "Have you fucked him?" He can feel the heat of Eames' breath ghost over his lips, feels the weight of the man's legs settling on either side of his own. He doesn't bother opening his eyes, he knows how this game will go. "If I have?" Arthur can drawl too, a soft gravelly sound. "I don't think you have Darling, if he had you, I can't imagine anyone would want to let that go." Eames doesn't mask the hunger in his statement, it is raw and rough. Arthur feels the brush of Eames' hands as they settle to either side of his head, pinning him against the headboard. "Maybe you are the only one who I haven't fucked Mr. Eames." Arthur lets the statement burn, puts enough cruelty into the words that Eames is rolling off of him.

Arthur doesn't open his eyes till he hears the bathroom door shut, he isn't sure why they bother to play anymore. Isn't sure when it's so blatantly obvious that they want each other, and it's so obvious to everyone who bothers to really look. But if anything, Arthur knows how flighty Eames can be, running and hiding, lying, forging, flying away. He doesn't know anymore why Eames pulls away when Arthur has all but offered everything up to him like a sacrifice. But he will not be the one to break, wont be the one to beg Eames to just do something, anything, to stop tormenting them. Eames started this game, and Arthur will win it, even though now winning was starting to feel a lot like loosing.

He starts to gather his things when he hears the shower turn on. Picking up newspaper pages, his discarded coat, paperwork and sketchbook. He can imagine Eames in the shower, strong lines, dark tattoos against tanned skin. Water pouring rivulets down dark indentations. He steadies his breathing, tries to lock down his responses, but it's not that easy in the waking world. Fuck Eames and this stupid game, and everything else.

The cold of the hallway is like a slap of ice to the face when compared to the warm cocoon Eames' hotel room had been. He goes up two flights of stairs, and hates himself for not turning the heat on in his own room before settling down in Eames'. He burrows under the blankets, fully clothed, watches the lights on the water outside his window glittering stars of light in the night, and waits for the heater to warm up the chill. It's just sex, it's always just sex, and why can't Eames just give in, what were the stakes, what were they playing for, and why did Arthur even think it was a good idea to gamble with an addict?

Despite it all though, he wants Eames, has wanted him for so long, and it's never really gone away, not after a hundred stabs in the back. Maybe he's just a masochist, maybe it's some kind of self-punishment. He hasn't gotten laid in so long though, even though he probably could have with Ariadne, but she was brittle and too-young, and it's too dangerous to fall in love, and she was the kind of person who would have fallen fast and hard.

He missed Mal, not as much as Cobb did, and a lot of his memories were now beginning to be tinted by all the times Cobb's shade of her had killed him as some kind of demonstration of internal guilt. He didn't want anyone to loose as much as she had, didn't want to put anyone through that, or go through the pain Cobb had gone through himself. Eames was safe, Eames was a thief and a liar, and wouldn't loose himself in Arthur, wouldn't love Arthur.

Which hurt all on it's own, and made Arthur hate himself a little bit, because despite all the fear, all the self-restraint, he sort of wanted Eames to love him. Even though that would be it, that would be the end of them ever working together again, he wanted to taste that just once.


	5. Chapter 5

John is pretty much doing nothing, he has been doing nothing for the last few days, his role turned to glorified copy boy and lunch fetcher as they start getting ready for the next stage of research. Jobs have predictable and easy to understand stages, research, plan, practice, implementation. At the moment they don't know how many levels they'll need, how intricate security will be. McKay had been working in Russia for a little while now, John was still keeping tight lipped about what had happened, about how he'd actually met McKay. It was a little too hard to believe anyway, even for him, and he was hoping they could go through the whole job without weird shit cropping up somewhere. Their client just wanted codes, wanted security clearance codes, and they'd get that from McKay and be done with it, John could go back to hiding and wasting time on a beach somewhere, and he would not feel bad about giving a rival company access to McKay Industries' internal network.

It was still just the three of them too, they wouldn't get an architect till later, even though he was pretty sure Arthur already had most of their crew lined up in advance. Currently John was printing out documentation for "Gerald Waite" the man that was being hired into McKay Industries as a secretary, the man whom Eames was slowly becoming. Across the warehouse Eames was sitting in a chair, head tilted back as Arthur bleached his hair. The scent of the chemicals was acidic in the enclosed location and even across all the space it made John's throat hurt a little. Or maybe it was just memories of Nancy and how she bleached her hair, how much shit he'd fucked up that did it either way he tried to ignore it. Focusing on the paperwork he forged signatures and made duplicates.

The work is monotonous, easy for John to loose himself in, he's never liked paperwork, but it was something to busy his hands with. He'd seen Arthur make false identities, had learned the skills to create his own from the kid, but this was a fucking art. He could understand why they called Eames the Forger now, he wasn't just in the extraction business, the man was a con-artist, identity thief, a real forger and more. Creating Mr. Waite had been a work of art, and John knew there was no way he could work people like that, make a call that resulted in a man just suddenly -existing- perfectly legal, with date of birth, social security number, job history.

Arthur helps Eames to dress, tightening his tie, helping him with his cuff links, John tries not to watch them but pretty much fails. It doesn't take someone skilled in microexpressions to recognize the look Eames throws him when he catches him watching. A flash of jealousy quickly replaced by a smile, and John knows intimately that Eames had let him see that on purpose. John holds his hands up in a sign of surrender, looking back to his paperwork, and really he wasn't interested in getting into whatever shit was going down between them. He didn't need the problems that would come from it, definitely didn't need a knife in his back for something he didn't even want. Sure Arthur was attractive, but on the same hand so was Eames, John wasn't much interested in either of them.

He hadn't expected Arthur to be in that type of game, not before he'd met Eames, but if anyone could have gotten Arthur to play, it would have had to be Eames. John was not interested in playing their games, at all, and while sex was nice, he had come to the conclusion that nothing was ever that simple with people as paranoid as those working in the extraction business.

Eames thanks him for the paperwork before leaving, it's his first day on the job and he'll get there early to scope it out. John watches him go, and despite the tension he'd felt just being around Eames, whom was quickly becoming a higher risk than Arthur on the internal threat scale, he missed the Brit when he'd gone. Arthur just didn't talk, unless he was giving orders or explaining some new detail, and John didn't talk much himself, preferred to have others fill in the silence. So without Eames, John quickly discovered there was a whole lot of silence he'd just noticed, and no one to fill it.

Around the time it was "lunch" John was offering to walk though the cold seven blocks just to get away from that silence. They were in positively one of the worse parts of the city, but he had a gun holstered under his thick leather coat and wasn't really worried about it. Arthur just handed him money and sent him on his merry way with his lunch order, which was the same curry dish he'd been getting since they got there. Trudging through the slush John not for the first time really wanted a stiff drink. Just thinking about it reminded him of the shoulder wound that still carried a scar despite the utterly neat work Arthur had done on patching him up. He didn't even remember how he'd gotten shot or why, and really that should have worried him more than it did.

He kind of envies Eames, who was at least doing something, could feel useful, and also whom also now had their car, which meant he was stuck walking, as he'd learned Arthur didn't think seven blocks was a large enough distance to warrant a cab. The distance was more like anything more than a mile, and then he'd still be hard-pressed to let you call one anyway. John -could- walk everywhere, that did not mean he wanted to walk everywhere, he'd done enough walking during training and it was a definite that he preferred to drive or fly. He liked the speed, and while he could buy a motorcycle or something, there was no telling how long they'd actually be here, and he didn't want to just waste the money, let alone go through the bother of getting a license. Of course he could have asked Eames to get one for him, but then he'd owe Eames something, and John really didn't want to do that. So for now and for an indeterminate time he would be walking everywhere, which meant the cold and the wet, and he hated the cold.

Getting a motorcycle wouldn't do much to protect against the cold anyway, and would in fact make it worse, so that wasn't much incentive either. He couldn't understand how an entire civilization of people would think it was a good idea to live somewhere this fucking cold.

The waiter already had their usual order rung up when he walked in, and he didn't have the heart to tell the Indian immigrant that they didn't need the chicken and chickpea order so he paid for Eames' lunch as well anyway and began the trudge back, surprised when he got there to see the car was already back. He hovered outside of the door, listening to the voices inside, Eames sounded highly amused and animated, but John couldn't make out the words. Straining to hear wasn't helping much, and Arthur was a quiet humming mumble, so he gave in and entered. "I've been fired." Eames sounded -proud- waving his papers in the air, and Arthur did not look particularly upset either, so John wasn't immediately worried. "They hired me as a bodyguard instead pending training." Eames laughed, eyes sparkling and John handed out the tin-wrapped styrofoam plates. Arthur thanked him and started eating, still sorting through paperwork with his free hand.

"A little elaboration would be nice." John prompted, receiving a grin from the Brit for his troubles. "I identified an armed gunman and disarmed them, McKay was so impressed he hired me on as a bodyguard. As it was I was already being kicked I had no idea what the bloody fuck they were talking about and I was supposed to be able to take intricate notes on experimental physics. That number prep you gave me did jack Sheppard, which isn't your fault, I'm not even sure they were using real numbers anymore. For a few minutes I was sure they were going to figure out I was a complete plant and throw me into a river, and then out of nowhere, it was brilliant. McKay now thinks I'm just a cheating hack with military training who couldn't cut it. I start tomorrow."

John feels ill, he remembers the acidic empty McKay, who had an ego and who had been passionately desperate and honest about his need for John's gene, for -John-. Feels ill because someone might have shot McKay today, would probably have managed to do it too, had Eames not been there. He feels ill because despite that, despite the worry and alarm curling in his gut, he's still going to help invade and take something he has no right to have. He's going to help people get inside and the one thing he remembered of Rodney was that everything on the outside was a lie. All the ego, all the harsh acidic wit, all of that asshole demeanor and self-confidence. He'd seen a glimpse of honesty when McKay had asked him to work for them, to be the thing they had always been missing. Knowing all that and we was still going to do this, and that's what made him feel sick.

Eames' silky brilliance, Arthur's cool dislocation, they had no right to be in McKay's head, and John was going to put them there. He was right all along, this would just prove it, he's not the man McKay needed. He's not that John.


	6. Chapter 6

"You need to be careful Eames." Arthur is mending Eames' waistcoat where he had managed to rip a button off. He still is sore that Cobb had let go that little secret on his skills in clothing repair, ever since he had a feeling Eames saved up all his mending for their jobs together. "Arthur it was hardly my fault, besides one button isn't so taxing is it?" Eames is fiddling with the window, trying to get it to shut all the way after he'd thrown his cigarette out, the bitter cold air is already stinging Arthur's cheeks.

"I meant over this new change in our plans, you are -not- a trained bodyguard, despite your ability to pretend to be as such." Arthur puts the waistcoat down as Eames slides to sit close beside him. "Are you worried about me Darling?" Eames' breath is hot against Arthur's ear, and it doesn't turn him on as much as it pushes warmth back into him. "Yes." Arthur is truthful for once, turning his face ever so slightly to take in Eames' surprise. "Come now, I know how to take care of myself." Eames' words do very little to comfort him. "You could have been the one shot." Arthur offers and wishes he hadn't spoken, because this is giving too much. They both live this life, too dangerous, too harsh, Eames could get shot over more banal things than stopping a gunman. Or it could be the same thing, but on a subway system, because Eames is a good person, and the world around them isn't.

Of course Arthur knows that to anyone else, Eames wouldn't be seen as a good person, but they'd never felt the Forger's touch gentle and caring, holding him down, stitching up a knife wound in Arthur's side that could have been fatal. Really dangerous, everything they did was, everyone they worked with, and when it all came down to it, really Arthur would rather be the one taking those risks, running point.

Eames cards his fingers through Arthur's hair, gently, petting through it, and Arthur relaxes a little. His hair is still a little wet from the shower he'd taken an hour prior, and Eames' hand is hot and feels good against the chill. "Love I'll be careful, here, come here." Eames tugs Arthur sideways, and he goes. He presses his face against the curve of Eames' neck and shoulder, closing his eyes and breathes in the clean scent of the forger's skin. It's so nice, just resting here against Eames, and he doesn't want it to end, doesn't want to let go of the moment, which is dangerous itself. "There now, I wouldn't do something that stupid, how would I bother you constantly if I did?" Eames' words force levity back into the situation. Arthur pulls away then, collects his sewing kit and moves from the bed. Too close to something nice, too close to something he might want a little too much, this was safer, just sex, Eames couldn't be anything else, he couldn't let that happen. Eames wouldn't want it anyway, too flighty, such a bird, never telling the truth.

When Arthur turns back to Eames he catches something in the Brit's eyes, something fleeting and soft, and then it's gone, and the smirk that replaces it is enough to wipe the memory of it away. It's sultry, seductive, Eames' has overwhelmingly sexy lips, and Arthur would very much like to see them wrapped around his cock. "Bright and early tomorrow Mr. Eames." He gathers his things together, pulls on his jacket and overcoat. "Wouldn't miss it for the world Darling." Eames is already stretched out on the bed, thick blankets covering up a very fit form.

Arthur doesn't go back to his room at first, instead starts to jog through the halls, the tinkling sound of his coat's zipper an accompanying note to his steps. He puts in his ear-buds before exiting the building and then does a circuit of the block. The air instantaneously tries to shut down his lungs, it's cold and bitter and it burns through him. Each breath, each step taken, is like a stab, reminding him how bad this could all be. How dangerous Eames was, how much it would hurt to let him in. He still has the college student's music library on the iPod, and the counterpoint to his pain is obscure indie, violins and depressed male vocals, and this is his life. Panting he stops in front of the warehouse they are working at, rests his forehead against freezing metal, and just breathes. It's painful, it hurts so much just to -breathe- and he feels so alive, and most of all he hates it. He's come undone, is a mess, his slacks are mussed with snow, his hair is messy with melting snowflakes, with the remnants of Eames' touch. He isn't perfect, and will never be perfect, not like in the dream, where he was efficiency and locks and what he always felt he should be, untouchable.

He wants Eames and wants so much and can never let himself have any of it. It would mean stopping all this, and Eames would never go for it, which is why Eames is safe to want to begin with, because Eames would never want a life with him. He isn't allowed to want something he can actually have, because that would just fuck everything up.

Arthur moves into the silence of the warehouse, his breath condensing in the air as he forces his heart-rate to steady. He sits down at his work station and boots up, no one bothers breaking into a warehouse that looks this horrid unless they knew what was in it to begin with, and no one would know so they just leave their work there. If it was a higher-security session, or further into the plan, he'd just sleep there on folding lawn chairs, but for now it's safe to leave everything laying around.

He works through the night and when John arrives in the morning their new architect and chemist have already unpacked. With Eames gathering what he needs of McKay's life straight from the source, they finally can enter the developmental phase, and Arthur can stop thinking so much about himself, stop thinking so much about things he isn't allowed to have.


	7. Chapter 7

"You want to what? No that's a horrible idea." John is angry, and is doing a terrible job at hiding it, he doesn't like Eames, not at all right now. The smarmy British fuck is leaning against his desk, fiddling with a desk toy that the chemist had brought with her. John -liked- the chemist on the other hand, she was small, didn't speak English too well, and was sweet. He had been having a conversation with her in garbled French when Eames had interrupted them. "I don't believe you have a choice in the matter, you can either cooperate and let me study you and ask direct questions, or I will do it anyway." Eames' smile is smooth but John knows it's a lie, which maybe pisses John off a little bit more, since fuck if everything the Brit did wasn't a lie.

Bringing Arthur coffee and no one else, and then pretending it was nothing, always hitting John's heater with his foot just hard enough to trip the circuit and shut it off, and John even knew why Eames didn't like him. Which made it a hundred times worse, because saying something wouldn't do shit, because Eames would lie and skirt around it, but John knew jealousy, and this was it. "Why would you even want to forge me? What would the purpose of that even be?" John is growling, a subtle sign that even Arthur knew to back the fuck off from, but Eames just glinted a grin in his direction.

"Because of this, because you don't want it to happen so desperately, emotions go two ways Sheppard. Whatever ticked you, it ticked him too, and so we need to have a chat about it." John notices a little too late that they are alone in the room now, Arthur whom is normally always right there in the corner at his desk is gone as well. John knows then it's too late, he's been dealt his cards, and it's either tip the table and fuck their job, or tell Eames exactly everything that happened, and while it was deep and lasting for him, it probably wasn't anywhere near that for McKay who lived it like breathing.

John gives in, even though he doesn't want to, but he's been loosing for so long now that really what is this but another bad hand anyway. He sits in the back room of the warehouse, the one Arthur had titled as storage and told Eames everything. How he fucked up, how he just kept fucking up, and then how things progressively got weirder. Sometime around his very monotone explanation of chasing a serial killing Alien life-form around Vegas he looked up to note that Eames didn't look particularly distrustful of him. Nor did the Brit look like he thought John was crazy, mostly Eames just seemed to be taking it all in. By the end, Eames is shaking his head a little. "McKay just let you drive away with all of that money, and you do not think you are important to him? I would love to have the interaction between him and this other you to go off of, because whatever it was, what you've just told me, you have -no- idea how much he wanted you around Sheppard." Eames believes him, this is enough to shock John into not arguing.

"This man would rather be stabbed then to admit he had a weakness brought on by himself. Appealing to you in the way he has, he was admitting just how broken things ended up for him in comparison to the Universe he prefers." Eames' words are like cold ice-water, John doesn't particularly like that feeling. "Have you stopped to think perhaps, how affected you were by his words Sheppard? He obviously thinks there is a better version of you out there." John isn't sure Eames' words are meant to curl that way in his gut, to broil up rage, he pushes the reaction down though. "Yeah, and maybe there is a universe where you're fucking Arthur and subsequently aren't such a prick." John still cant help the comment though, despite it all. Eames laughs, and suddenly some tension bleeds away, John looses some of the stress from his spine he wasn't even aware of till it was gone.

After that Eames is actually amiable, and John starts to understand why it is everyone likes him so much. They spend a few hours together every day after Eames works as a bodyguard, and they just talk. John finds Eames is knowledgeable about a wide variety of subjects, and to his surprise, also enjoys surfing and roller-coasters, and they've both traveled extensively enough to have plenty of both to talk about. He knows on some level that Eames is actually studying him, learning his every mannerism, but somehow he's okay with it now.

It's a week before they are set to pull the job when John experiences the illusion Eames has created for the first time. He's having to stand in for Arthur during a trial run, as the chemist needs him for experimenting exact chemical levels and so Arthur is testing kicks with the Architect. Eames is standing across from him, he knows it has to be Eames, but it feels more like he's standing in front of a mirror. "It just a little hard to get used to at first." Eames speaks, but John hears his own voice, what he knows he must sound like to other people. It's unnerving. He speeds through everything mostly because he just -doesn't- want to see himself move anymore, see what everyone else can see when they look at him. He doesn't want to look at the thing he has become, that Eames has learned so well.

Everything is moving smoothly, two layers and the only risk being that they won't know McKay's exact chemistry, but nothing could go wrong enough to send them into something they couldn't handle. The real job would take place on that second level, the first only existing to disorient McKay a little, dislocate him from reality. The real job all took place in the hotel-casino John had helped to build. They had McKay's basic medical records that showed fit health and no chemical imbalances, straight from a contact Arthur had in the Air Force, so everything would run smooth. Just as long as John didn't have to fill in for Arthur too many more times in practice runs, they'd be fine, just another job well done, and this close to everything coming together, John was finally loosing a little bit of that guilt.

Of course it helped to have Eames there to talk to him, to keep his mind off exactly what they were doing. Eames was remarkably good with sleight of hand John had come to see, and also good at pick-pocketing. Currently the score was 4 to 7 in John's favor with wallet snatching, and John had come to learn what fun could be had annoying Arthur when Eames was around to take all the aggression and glares.

Two days away from the job John stands opposite of Eames, sharing his last proper cigarette in seriously bitter weather. "You know you're fucking insane, goading him like that?" John stares hard at Eames and watches the Brit smile up at the moon. "He'll love me one of these days John, you'll see." Eames' words actually twist something up in John, they are open in a way he isn't sure he's seen Eames be before. "I'll follow him until he loves me." Eames adds, throwing John a leer, or maybe a grin, in the light John cannot tell. John is pretty sure that maybe Arthur already does love him, but he keeps that to himself, their game isn't his business.


	8. Chapter 8

It is the day before the job is going to take place and Arthur is the only one left in the warehouse. He's packing up the last of their things, which means really his things and cleaning up the odds and ends that were let behind. McKay has a doctor's appointment in the morning and they'll be drugging him there, they've already bribed the staff. The PASIV is packed and tucked safely in the trunk of the car, ready for Arthur to get it out in the morning. He's just waiting for Eames to report back after his day of work. After they pull the job "Mr. Waite" would put in his resignation after a day or two, claiming McKay was too much to handle. Truthfully Eames had already stated as much to Arthur, apparently the man was a complete acidic shell with a needy inside who picked apart every single thing anyone ever did, and while on one level Eames found it all infinitely amusing, Arthur knew the forger well enough to know that Eames was very annoyed on all the other levels.

He is sweeping up the floor one last time when his phone starts to ring. Balancing the broom in the crook of his arm he answers it without checking the caller ID, because if anyone is calling, it's because they were given this number, which means someone on the team. "Arthur speaking." He is looking around the room, studying things, making sure he's grabbed up everything, that no one had left anything important behind. The white noise he's able to hear in the background of the telephone conversation is familiar for some reason, but he isn't sure why till the Russian speaker begins. His mind is instantly switching tracks, translating the words. Somehow though he thinks something is being lost, because Eames cant have been shot, he'd just seen him at lunch, just spoken to him on the phone not an hour ago, and no, he cannot be in the hospital.

Arthur doesn't even grab his coat, and by the time he is sitting in the waiting room, numb and with no more information than he had when he'd gotten there, he is so cold he can barely breathe. At least he blames it on the cold, and not how they'd told him Eames was in ICU, how they couldn't give him any information unless he was family, and how even when he'd brought up a false ID that stated he was Mr. Waite's brother, they were still unable to update him, because by then some horrible government types were standing around. He should have left then, as really this was remarkably dangerous, really very dangerous, since at any time they could figure out Eames wasn't Mister Waite at all. But he couldn't bring himself to leave, not till he knew, not till he was sure that Eames was going to be alright, that he wasn't fucking already dead.

After a while someone drops to sit beside him on the waiting room bench and it is a testament to how distraught he is that he doesn't realize at first it's Meredith McKay. The man looks much different up close, hunched in on himself, gripping a styrofoam cup of coffee. Arthur notices that there is blood on McKay's sleeve, and he has a feeling that it's Eames blood, and it should be on -his- sleeve, he should have been there, except he couldn't have been, this is just the way their life is. It takes the man a few moments to come down to earth after Arthur turns to him completely. "You're waiting for someone?" Arthur asks, even though he knows who it is they are both waiting for. He notices that McKay's cheek has an abrasion on it, that the man looks slightly like he's in shock. "Are you his brother?" The look of shock passes, and Arthur watches as blue eyes snap to clarity, and it's a marvel to him how quickly it seems that the man can put things together. He knows now why Eames was getting annoyed, the man went through a whole map of emotions in seconds and it would be hard for someone skilled in reading people to nail down which emotion was the permanent one. "They said Waite's brother was out here, you don't look much alike." McKay narrows his eyes, looks around as if maybe he'd missed someone else in the room.

"I was adopted... is he... is he stable?" Arthur doesn't bother to hide it, the fear, the emotion, he's allowed to feel it, he's playing a part that would feel it. "I.. I'm sorry. I mean, yes, he is, but, I'm sorry." McKay looks pained, and Arthur is terrified, so much guilt, and he's trying to push down all the horrible things. Eames paralyzed, blind, stable but broken forever, and he needs to know right now, and if no one will tell him, he will take this bastard beside him hostage until someone does. "He's going to be fine I think, they got him in the shoulder, it was a Russian mob hit, well attempted, I... I don't even know why, it's all rather ridiculous." McKay blinks a little, and Arthur ignores the looks the Canadian is giving him, paces because he has to move or he is going to hurt someone.

"I need to see him, can you get them to let me see him, they won't let me." Arthur is breaking apart, and he cant make everything fit back together, and maybe if he could just -see- Eames, be assured that McKay was telling the truth, maybe then he can force everything to be alright again.

He cannot hear the terse angry arguments that the man is making in his benefit, cannot hear anything at all until the soft steady beat of the monitor in Eames' room, and then Eames' soft exhale of surprise. He leans over the hard railing, presses his face to hair he had bleached and breathes in. Just breathes till he can hear Eames' voice quietly soothing him. "Your brother, yeah right, my ass." Arthur had forgotten himself, and fuck if this day could get any worse, McKay is leaning against the door, keeping privacy, Eames' face is one of shock and Arthur had given away so much.

"Where did you two get married? I get that you aren't allowed to ask after if you aren't related in the states, but you know you can bribe anyone for anything here." Arthur lets out the breath he'd been holding, shaky exhale, he looks to Eames, who just looks amused now. "Darling, you forgot your coat didn't you, you're positively freezing." Eames is pale, and probably on pain medication, and there was no way he could go under tomorrow. Arthur wants to punch him, wants to scream at him and cry and never let him go again. "By the way, Waite you are fired, there is no way I am staying here anymore, people try to kill me more here than they did in Pe-... never mind. You know what you're just fired, and now that your husband is here I'm going home before I have a heart attack, I have a very sensitive heart you know!" McKay is still complaining on his way down the hallway.

Arthur presses his face to the curve of Eames' neck, he can scent antiseptic, his lips are so close to the bandage, and he doesn't care if he's hurting Eames, just holds tight to him and shakes apart. "Oh Darling, it's alright. Sweetheart come now." Eames consoles and Arthur punches him, doesn't think to use proper technique and so it probably hurts him worse than it does the Brit. "You fucking bastard, you fucking prick, you put me as your emergency contact, and I had no way of knowing, and the fucking government wouldn't let me know what was even going on because of that fucking Canadian bastard. I thought you were dying, you asshole, I thought you were dead." His voice quivers, which wouldn't be that bad if he could not also feel the tears against his face. Shame curls low and wicked in his gut, Eames' lip is split and for the first time Arthur knows the shock displayed on the forger's face is legitimate.

"I need to prep John to replace you." Arthur is angrily wiping at his tears. "Fuck we don't even have his chemical balance for the current mixture, fuck." Arthur paces, cradling his hand, just trying to stop himself from shaking, from showing all this weakness to the one man he would do anything to hide it from. "It's just my shoulder... I can work this job Arthur." Eames sounds obstinate and Arthur rounds on him with a growl. "You pulled me from fucking school, you pulled me from retirement, and you dare to challenge me now? They've shot you with so much medication tonight that you're not going near somnacin again till I fucking say you can." Arthur finally stops moving, stands perfectly still, and stares Eames down. "You're staying here. I will come to get you tomorrow after the job and... fuck... I don't even know, I'll come up with someplace you can recover." Arthur's anger collapses a little, looking at Eames. The man looks so tired, so bruised, and his lip was still bleeding.

Arthur moves, pressing a paper towel to the blood, feeling enough guilt to do it softly. "Arthur." Eames' voice sounds raw, and Arthur tries very hard not to look into those blue-gray eyes, because he knows he wont be able to leave if he does. "Be careful Darling, they weren't after him. It was personal." The claim has Arthur's breath hitching, and he turns with a nod. "I'm always careful." He had to be, too many loose ends, like Eames, and look at where that had left him.


	9. Chapter 9

John's day could not get any worse. From the moment Arthur shook him awake and started drilling him on improvised conversational tactics, to finally understanding why he was being drilled, everything just kind of sucked after that. The coffee Arthur gave him was cold, the clothing Eames was supposed to wear was too baggy on him, and then he'd had to call the chemist and hear her angrily berate him for not having a chemical profile already set for emergencies like these.

Like anything like this should be something he would be prepared for. Like oh, our Forger got himself shot and I have to fill in, was something that happened to him all the time. So they just wouldn't fuck up, or he'd end up in Limbo. Truthfully, he'd never been in Limbo before, and had no intention of ending up there now, as Arthur's explanation of it had been horrifying, and he had no intention of fucking around with a lifetime of that.

It was early enough that he wasn't even thinking clearly enough to realize that not only were they doing this without Eames, but that he was going to be playing himself in McKay's head. It was much later, when they were actually prepping to enter the clinic, waiting for McKay and his entourage to arrive, that John fully recognized what he was going to do. Rodney McKay was going to be hooked into the PASIV and he was going to distract him while Arthur mucked around in his head to look for key-codes. This was horrible and was never going to work, and fuck McKay was going to kill him, or McKay's subconscious was going to kill him, and he was going to end up in fucking Limbo.

"Whatever you do, don't get killed John, I do not want to have to go into Limbo after you alright? I'm set to come up before you remember that. Then I'll kick you and pull you out, finally is McKay, by then we'll be out of here." Arthur preps him one more time, and yeah John knows the order, and really doesn't need to be reminded that he isn't supposed to get killed.

They watch as McKay enters the building and then they're rushing inside as a small Russian nurse hurries them through the clinic's halls. John cannot really understand her, but something she says has Arthur halting in his steps. It sends a bolt of alarm through John, but quickly Arthur starts walking again. She raises her hand to stop them in the hall, and enters a room. Inside she'll be giving McKay what he believes to be a vitamin shot that will make him mildly drowsy, but it really a tranquilizer. "He's hypoglycemic." Arthur's voice is low, John blinks, trying to understand. "He needs to eat regularly... the medical report we have, the one on Air Force file, it didn't mention that." Arthur explains, and there, the day was getting so much fucking worse. "Do not let him die either John." Arthur warns, no worry to his tone, but John figured after the night they'd had, Arthur's worry had already been spent up.

The nurse ushers them in not long after, and it's like a punch to the gut when he sees McKay. The man looks small, all the bluster gone from him, curled up on his side on the examination table. Arthur is prepping him almost immediately for the PASIV but all John can do is look. It's been awhile since he'd seen the scientist, and even then he'd only know Rodney for a week, but the changes were clear. He looked ill, his skin pale, heavy rings under his eyes. Notable was the missing wedding ring, the stubble. It looked like life had been hard on McKay, harder than it had been on John lately. He catches himself brushing back thinning dark-blonde hair, his knuckles brushing against pale skin. Ashamed his eyes flick up to note Arthur watching him, partway through with inserting his own needle. "Don't mess this up." Arthur warns, sliding into a chair. John inserts his own needle and closes his eyes tight, listening to Arthur press the button that released the drug cocktail.

The dinner is all muted sounds, it's blessedly hot, John can taste sweat when he licks his lips. He's wearing sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt, under the light jacket he can feel the heavy familiar weight of his gun and holster. He turns his head to look out of the window, watches the dust storm work a mess of the parking lot. When he turns his head back, it's to see McKay staring at him curiously. "So you want me to work with you?" John asks, as if they'd been having a conversation all along, as if he was making sure of something McKay had just said. This was the second dream down, John's dream, filled up with McKay. Which meant the first level with Arthur's mazes had gone off perfectly, leaving their target disoriented enough to trip up.

The scientist blinks soft blue eyes, and John takes him in, remembers suddenly how beautiful they look, how much emotion they show unbidden. McKay is confused, alarmed, struggling to remember, and then it all lifts away. John is shocked by the calm amiable expression that drifts onto McKay's face. The hard lines lift, the cruel set of thin lips fades to a smile, and most importantly the cold glint in blue eyes melts to innocence. "I'm dreaming." McKay whispers it, but John has no trouble hearing him, his whole world is pretty much focused on that, and how they were so fucked, just five minutes of his time into the dream. "What?" John could kick himself, because fuck, he'd been trained better than this, but it was McKay, who had thrown him so hard the first time they met, so really he was expecting shit to go any better this time? He should have got right back on that plane and told Arthur he'd pay him back, this was -bad- fucking horrible.

John also notices as an afterthought that the dinner's patrons hadn't turned on him yet either. "Always you, in my fucking dreams." McKay tilts his head, looking at John, studying him. "Haunting me, you're like a ghost." McKay sighs, and John is left spinning. "I am?" John asks, takes a sip of his coffee. "Of course, and of course it makes sense, I mean you could have done so much for the project, could have gotten me the project back really. I risked so much just offering you a place, and then getting you in without NDA, and you had such promise. Of course you haunt me, and it's no use even lying to myself, I mean you are me, just a mental representation of longing. Sheppard was fucking hot." McKay sighs, and John is pretty much not sure he would have wanted Eames playing him right now anyway.

"That other Sheppard was hot, but... he didn't get it. Didn't get exactly what I was up against here, and he wasn't..." McKay sighs sharply, pushes his hand through his hair, stabs his fork into the plate of pancakes in front of him. "He wasn't mine, he didn't belong, as much as I wanted him, needed someone like him because fuck. Everything I worked for, and I managed it in another universe? I actually managed it and the only difference was -you- I didn't have you. Of course I dream of you, of course you haunt me." McKay's words tell John everything he'd heard way back in that parking lot before he'd tried to run away and not look back and pretty much failed that miserably. Except he cannot run here, cannot pretend he's not listening, too stupid to get it.

"I'm haunting you?" John asks, and the look he gets from McKay has him standing, pulling the scientist with him, because if he doesn't get McKay out of here, then the dinner's other patrons are going to start turning on him. He presses Rodney against the wall some place deep in the hotel casino, feels the man's warmth, the way his chest hitches pressed between them. Rodney is shorter than him but heavier, John knows if this turns he might be in shit, but for now Rodney is compliant. Very compliant, tilting his head back, letting it thud against the wall as John bites and sucks against soft pale skin, nuzzling Rodney's collar aside. He was supposed to be distracting anyway, and fuck Arthur's bitchy calls. Arthur wasn't his mother, and Rodney -wanted- him, wanted the broken John, not the perfect visitor from another universe, John could only take so much.

John really isn't expecting it when the other John with his odd military jacket pulls him off McKay brutally and punches him. He probably should have he thinks, blocking another punch, after the conversation they'd just had, but honestly he had not been thinking very clearly. "You don't fucking touch him you broken fucking bastard." John is pretty sure by the shocked expression on McKay's face that this shade is only half of his creating. "You'll leave him as fucking crushed as you left Nancy, you don't deserve him." Oh yes, and that was self-hatred pouring out, and this was a horrible time for him to have a heart to heart with himself. Fucking hell, Arthur was going to kill him.


	10. Chapter 10

Arthur knew there was something very wrong when on the way to where he was pretty sure McKay would have built up his own personal mind safe, as that was where -they- had built it and it was convenient, he saw John running through the corridor. John with neatly cut hair, and less stubble than he had ever seen him, and a uniform on, John whom was obviously not John. Caught between doing his job, and bailing -his- John out, Arthur started humming internally and set off at as quick a clip he could manage. Code first, then he'd make sure John hadn't gotten himself killed, literally.

Arthur had not quite been prepared for the mass of fucking individuals guarding McKay's privacy though, the first bullet wound was relatively easy to run through, he knew intimately how long it would take him to bleed out. It was the second shot that made everything a little harder, including moving and breathing. Chest wounds were never very clean, and coughing blood up onto the safe sort of made it hard to set the charges. By the time he's blown the safe, he can hear the projections beating a mess at the door, wanting him dead, wanting him stopped. He moves to the window, clutching the envelope. His song is ending, and he has only a few minutes to get to John, to secure them and wait out the kick.

He steps out onto the balcony, watches the sand whip the landscape, obscuring all but their little island, all but their casino hotel. He secures his arm around the line, ties it tight to the rail and rappels down like an acrobat, even though it fucking hurts and all he wants to do is curl up in a ball and let the projections rip him apart. He lands hard and without grace, and if Eames was there he would laugh at him. If Cobb was there he'd tell Arthur it was time to take a break. Pushing himself up, he agrees, he had been taking a break, and Eames had wanted him to help, and god but he'd never been able to turn him down. He coughs, blood splattering against the concrete balcony, it's so hard to breathe, his heart feels like it's breaking. Or maybe it's just the bullet that had punctured his lung, but it hurts so much either way.

He rips open the envelope, studies the code intimately, till he knows he'll remember it years from now, and then puts the paper back, lets it rest on the ground as he stands. He'd need to run if he was going to find John in time, he takes one deep breath, all sharp lines and skill, and no he won't let himself feel it, and so he doesn't. He's running to the anticipation of music he's willing not to come too soon.

He finds them not in the dinner, but outside of it, he knows it by the circle of projections that stand confused. So focused they don't even notice the man jostling between them, bleeding the entire way. He stifles copper-tasting coughs against his sleeve and finally can see what has the projections, and McKay enthralled.

John has the projection up against the wall, gun pressed to his temple, and even though Arthur had been shot, he's pretty sure John is feeling more pain at the moment. Heavy lacerations, split knuckles, the man looks a mess. What was more, he looked to be breaking apart, breathing heavy, more anger than Arthur had ever thought John could express in his eyes. He cannot hear what John says, it's a whisper as he leans in to the projection, something soft and vicious. He actually jumps a little when the shot is fired. He isn't expecting McKay to crumple to the ground, sliding down a dark-red mess of a wall. The projection of John laughs, it's a harsh, cruel, angry sound, and then John is screaming, and it's over.

The crowd of projections have left, resuming their not-lives, and McKay is dead on the ground, Arthur knows it before he even bothers to lean down to check his pulse. The projection of John had dropped his gun when he'd been shot. Arthur can hear the strains of his kick beginning over the sound of John dropping his own gun, they have thirty seconds to pick up the pieces and make a plan before he's kicked out of the dream. "I'll go after him." Limbo, and Arthur really didn't want to do this. "No." John's voice sounds more than a little hollow, Arthur is prepared to disarm him immediately after he sees John pick back up his gun. "This is my fault." John flips the gun in his hands slowly. "Besides, Eames needs you. No one needs me." Arthur wants to argue, but he's always been a bit of a selfish prick. "Be careful John." He watches John put the gun in his mouth and point it up. He doesn't flinch when the trigger is pulled. When the kick comes he's ready for it, breathing deeply as the world tips upside down on him.

Coming up out of the dream panting it takes a minute to shake the pain ghosting along his senses. The nurse is partway through re-arranging the room, to make it look like McKay had slept through the exam. He stands, rolling down his sleeves, buttoning them in turn. He could stay, wait for John, but there was no guaranteeing he'd ever wake up, and alarming the nurse now would just cause unnecessary risk. Of course if the time passed past the moment John was supposed to come up, and then McKay, they'd send McKay's guards in. He needed to be far away by then, or he'd be screwed, so there was no use in waiting. He gathered his things, threw John's relaxed form one final look and then made his way out.

The trip to the hospital was cold and bitter, and by the time Arthur got there, he really did feel like he'd been shot in the lung it hurt so much to just breathe. Eames was sitting up in bed when he entered the room, and all Arthur really wanted to do was maybe crawl in with him and just not fucking move till he could remember what being warm felt like. Instead he helped Eames to turn off the monitoring devices, and then helped him to dress, and if his eyes lingered a little too long on the tattoos that riddled Eames' skin, well fuck it, he'd had a horrible day. "So where are we going Darling? Someplace sunny I hope." Eames is obviously in pain, Arthur can tell by his tone, which meant the Brit had been refusing pain medications to make his head clear, to make things easier on Arthur. Arthur hated him so much right now, hated everyone really. "We'll have to stay in the country for a little while longer, I'm sorry." He explains to Eames how the job had gone down as they dodge hospital security cameras.

He'd brought Eames more layers of clothing than a seal had fat, and even though it takes them forever to get to the run-down trashy motel, Eames is probably still warm. Arthur doesn't bother with pride when they get to their single bed room, he crawls under the blankets after stripping down and just tries to feel anything again other than burning pain as his extremities remember what warmth is again. The motel attendant had thought he was a rent-boy anyway, so fuck it, he wasn't going to care right now.

When Eames slides into the bed behind him all stiff movements and -heat- Arthur feels like he can breathe again. Eames throws his good arm around Arthur, pulls him back against his chest, and Arthur goes readily, relaxes until his spine is flush to Eames' skin. Nothing has the right to feel this good either, bare skin hot against his, and they aren't fucking, just touching, and it's enough. Which is the worse part, because Arthur knows he can never let this happen again, can never let Eames touch him again, because it will be too much, finally too much, and he'll just break apart.

He falls asleep so bone tired, even though it felt like all he'd been doing for so long was dreaming. Eames' arm still pressed tight and protective around him.


	11. Chapter 11

Here there be sex.

* * *

The city is like cut glass, like so many stained glass windows, with the glitter of water and light playing on each wall. John feels like each hallway goes forever, it feels like freedom, beautiful like the sky. He's wearing the uniform the projection had worn, gray and black, it feels like he belongs in it. He knows this is all just how McKay feels, but he cant help but think that maybe this was how he would have felt too. Like everything had so many possibilities, like the sky was waiting for him with open arms.

He explores the empty hallways till he finds what must have been a set of labs. He knows before he enters them he'll find McKay working in them. The man is all static-lines and excitement scribbling things on a dry-erase board. "Hey there McKay." John drawls, leans against a table and reads the equations Rodney is writing. He knows the answers, the math, he's always been good with numbers, no one would play black-jack with him. "Hey John." Rodney doesn't bother turning around, still scribbling, and it aches inside of him, because he knows now, -this- was what Rodney had wanted from him all along. Friendship, faith, he'd just wanted a fucking friend, for John to fill up that hole by just -being there- and fuck, was it really that much, really that scary to just be there?

"Would you turn these on for me?" Rodney looks back at him, still holding his dry-erase board pen, and pushes little things across the table toward him. "I think this one might be a game or something, but I cant get it to work, and you probably could, and you'd probably like it, I don't know know, seeing as of course I cannot get it to turn on, or I wouldn't be asking you to turn it on." John knows Rodney had seen the other John, his memories of everything were colored by him, and wonders if this was a replay of something, or just wishful thinking. "Better idea, lets grab some lunch." John prompts and watches blue eyes light up with unbridled glee. He knows the McKay outside, the one curled up on the examining table, that he'd never show that much open emotion, couldn't afford to, and it twists John up so much, how hurt and hateful McKay was out there.

"I think they have the blue jello today, with the lemon cubes, god I love that stuff." Rodney grabs his arm, tugging him along, and John smiles slowly, following. "You know that other universe version of me was allergic to citrus, wait I've probably told you that before." McKay frowns tugging them into a transporter. John reaches out and ruffles McKay's hair before the door shuts all the way. When it opens again, McKay still looks pleasantly shocked a soft smile on his lips. John cant help it, he grins and tilts Rodney's chin up, pressing their lips together softly. "You have, but I don't mind." John says quietly against the scientists' lips, and it's true, he wants to listen to Rodney ramble all day, learn everything he can, and he has every intention of doing so. For as many days as he wants, for weeks and it's just them, just the two of them. He lives this with Rodney, so much perfection.

John listens to him talk about work, finds himself arguing about which Doctor was best, about how Ledger was so obviously the best Joker and Christopher Nolan was a genius. Rodney preferred Ten to Five which was blasphemy, and liked the television series' version best, but John found he could forgive him when he had him pinned down on the floor beneath him, finally, after months together. Almost a year of listening and learning, and getting into each others skin, taking his time because there isn't any rush, not yet.

Rodney made soft little gasps against John's hair as he bit and sucked, made little keening noises and squirmed his hips when John pulled at delicate flesh with his teeth. He bit till Rodney's neck and shoulders were a mess of bruises and marks, and then he moved down. Rodney was a vocal and open lover, and John knew it was only because he didn't know, didn't know this wasn't what he thought it was. John found the lube in his pocket where he wanted it to be, and felt guilt when he looked up to see the open need and wonder in warm blue eyes.

When he presses the first finger deep into Rodney he leans over him, watches as the emotions filter across his face, hungrily eats up the passion and pleasure. "Your eyes are like the sky." The words slip out before he can stop them, saying it makes it true, makes John know it, he'll never forget it. Rodney's eyes are like freedom, when he thrusts inside, slow and steady, he can't look into them or he'll fucking come right there, so he doesn't. He hides his face against Rodney's shoulder instead, tastes the bruises he left on soft skin and just pushes, pushes till he's all the way in, till it feels like he's going to shake apart. Rodney is tight and perfect, makes such beautiful noises under him, and John can't help it, he thrusts and thrusts long before either of them are ready for it.

Rodney whimpers with each movement, and when John starts pounding into him, he's making strangled little shouts that completely undo John till he's just slamming into that tight heat, claiming and taking. His fingers dig into Rodney's hips, into the inside of his thighs, he leaves marks wherever he touches, leaves a trail of his desire and need till Rodney is sobbing with pleasure beneath him.

John opens his eyes to look down at Rodney, wanting to see him, to see the way those thin lips parted to sob out his name. But all he can see is blue, eyes so blue he can barely breathe, looking up at him with so many promises and so many secrets willing to be laid bare, and that is all John can take. He comes, so hard everything turns black, and when he can breathe again, it's to find Rodney is wrapped so tight around him, holding him close, holding him so that John is still pressed so fucking deep inside of him.

"F-fuck Rodney... did you come?" John shudders with the effort to speak and doesn't even try to move yet. "Y-yeah." Rodney laughs, it's a warm sound, John can feel it against his cheek. When John pulls his gun from the holster, he knows Rodney isn't expecting it, doesn't know. John moves, changes his angle, and his cock is so fucking sensitive it almost makes him loose his balance. John braces himself above Rodney on one arm, looks down at him, at the rise and fall of his chest, at the open expression of joy in tired blue eyes. "Good bye Rodney." John shoots him, watches the light die in those eyes, before sliding out and shooting himself.

Rodney is too groggy to realize at first, he hasn't been trained like John has, to move through the after-effects of the drugs. So John has the PASIV packed up by the time Rodney has stopped throwing up into the waste-basket near the examination table. He cant afford to wait around for Rodney to identify him, for the drugs to clear enough. He doesn't want to wait around, doesn't want to see understanding dawn, doesn't want to see pain snap into place before being hidden. John runs, runs from the guilt and runs from the memories, runs from what he'd given up without ever wanting to have. He can still feel the after-shocks, the glow of pleasure on his skin, of what he'd taken and could never give back.

They had a rendezvous point tomorrow, but until then John is on his own, alone with the knowledge of what he'd help to do, and even more, of what he'd taken from Rodney. Trust and emotion, and so much understanding that he was starting to doubt even the man's mistress had seen that deep, and wasn't that just like him, to fuck up someone who didn't even know him. He isn't allowed much time to feel sorry for himself though, the bitter cold smacks him back into reality, and he navigates the city, avoiding the heavier trafficked areas. He wanders aimlessly for awhile, till he adopts the guise of the businessman, rents out a room, and locks himself in the thick heat a dozen floors up. The world is dark by the time he puts the PASIV down on the bed. He sits in front of the heater, watches the moon rise into the clouded night, and lets himself feel the sense memory of Rodney beneath him as his body warms back up. It's something he doesn't ever want to forget, even though it was just a dream, even though he could never have it out here where it mattered. He never wanted to let it go, and when he can taste McKay's skin with each breath in, he knows now Rodney isn't the only one to be haunted.


	12. Chapter 12

When Arthur wakes the sun hasn't even risen, it takes him a few disoriented and slightly panicked moments in the darkness to recognize the arm wrapped around him, to not reach for a gun that wasn't there. Closing his eyes, he presses his face into the pillow, focuses on the way Eames' breath is measured and soft against the back of his neck. He moves, and when he does Eames draws his arm back, which answered the question of whether the man was awake or not. "Did you get a clear look at the man who shot you?" Arthur's voice is low in the darkness. He turns under the warmth of the covers, his eyes accustomed to the low light. He can see the Forger's silhouette against the light filtering past the drawn curtains. He drifts his hand through Eames' hair, brushing it back from the man's face. "Yeah, Mafia type, I may owe the Russians some cash." Eames' words hold levity and shame. Arthur wants to punch him again, but more than that he wants to kiss him. "You owe everyone money Mr. Eames." Arthur is pretty sure Eames owes him a few thousand dollars too, but he just never cared enough to make an actual note of it. He remembers buying Eames out of a few jails, and also at one time he had bought the Brit a car he'd just had to have and hadn't remembered to bring any cash. Fronting Eames money on loan, meant never seeing that money again, Arthur had been pretty clear on that from the get-go, and really, anyone who hadn't figured that out was an idiot who deserved to loose their shirt.

"Arthur-" Eames cuts himself off, and pauses for so long that Arthur thinks maybe he had decided better than to say what he'd been planning. "Darling, are you alright?" Arthur stills his fingers against Eames' cheekbones, feels the warmth of the forger's skin, knows he's alive. "Yes, yes Eames." He is okay, more than okay, Eames is alive, alive enough to joke and make light, and god but that's all Arthur really cares about right now. "How is your shoulder doing?" Arthur asks, already shifting, getting ready to stand and fetch the medical kit he'd filched from the hospital. "Twinges, probably needs to have the dressing changed." By the time Eames has finished his sentence Arthur is making his way to the kit. His eyes adjust eerily fast to the light, while Eames buries his face against a pillow and curses in one of the few languages Arthur doesn't speak too. Arthur waits for Eames to stop, for his eyes to adjust, before helping the Brit to sit up. His hands are gentle, peeling medical tape and gauze away. The stitches are neat, obscure one of Eames' intricate tattoos, Arthur traces the lines with his eyes before he gathers up gauze and alcohol.

He dabs at the raised flesh, padding the acrid scented cloth against the neat suture-work, he ignores the complaints Eames makes, the twitches of tanned skin. When he's done he lays a fresh bandage over the site and deftly tapes it in place. Sitting back he looks at his handy-work, which also includes looking at Eames, whom is looking at him with one of his more cryptic facial expressions. Arthur presses his lips together thinly and stares Eames' down, which was something he found he was good at far too long ago. "Would you like me to get you a drink to take a pain pill with?" He didn't bother to ask if Eames wanted to take one, because Eames never did, so he'd just make him take one, or the Brit would end up complaining in an hour when he tried to pick something up only to remember that he'd been shot and maybe that was a bad idea. "Please love." Eames lays back down rather stiffly while Arthur pulls on his clothing.

The hallways in the motel were painted a disgusting color of green that Arthur had been too numb to pay attention to the first time but were horribly nausea inducing the second time. The look on the motel desk attendant's face when he passed by showed that yes, they still thought he was a rent-boy, and he really didn't care enough to change that opinion. He fights with the soda pop machine till a generic looking bottle of coke spit itself out and then moved back toward their room. When he enters Eames has his gun trained on the door, and Arthur is suddenly hit by how very ridiculous it all was. He manages to get the cola into Eames' hands and the pill, before he slides to the floor. Leaning against the edge of the bed, he presses his cheek to scratchy comforter and closes his eyes tight. "I can't do this anymore Eames." His voice sounds brittle and he hates it. "I have to step back, don't call me for work again, I'm sorry, I just... I can't." Arthur shakes with his conviction, with the pain of admission and weakness. With the guilt of knowing that if Eames needed him, really needed him, he just couldn't be there for him, not like this.

Eames' hand threads through his hair, just comforting, and Arthur could never thank Eames enough for just being quiet for once, for just letting the moment pass and not making a joke or picking him apart. Soon enough he is put back together, ready to pick up the pieces, to get back to work. After today he'd get Eames someplace safe, and then, then he'd walk away, just walk away. Create another lie, live in yet another skin that was too close to everything he really was, and yet not close enough to burn him. Go to another college, or maybe just buy a house on the ocean somewhere, and not carry a gun everywhere he went, and not worry every second of the day whether or not Eames was alright, if they could pull off one last job, if they hadn't lost their edge yet. He loves the work, loves the challenge, but he cant do it, cant take the stress of every moment, counting the seconds till Eames dies.

He stands, and fixes his clothing, makes himself look presentable, or presentable enough for someone who hadn't changed since the morning before last. He ignores the worried way Eames is watching him. "Rest Mr. Eames, I'll be back after the rendezvous. Then we'll figure out what country you -can- currently inhabit and will not get arrested upon flying in." Arthur fixes his tie last, doesn't bother to do up his top button, it's too early and he just doesn't care enough right now to bother.

John is sitting against the wall in sufficiently paranoid demeanor for anyone working in their business. Arthur slides to sit down next to him, lifting the PASIV's case from the ground and setting it nimbly on his lap. "I'm going into retirement." He states, letting his head rest back against the wall. He can hear the airplanes lifting off in the distance. This part of the airport was never very inhabited, Arthur knew this from the experience one could only gather from years spent in that particular airport at different times of the year. "I thought you -were- in retirement kid?" John asks, and usually the pet-name would grate on Arthur's nerves but for once he lets it slide. "Back into retirement." He sighs, lifting his head up to watch a plane taxi past the window. John has never taken his eyes from the planes, from the sky, and Arthur had long ago come to accept that as normal behavior for someone who used to fly more than they slept. "I think I'll drop out for awhile too." John lacks some of the restless energy Arthur had always seen thrumming under the surface. He wondered what Eames would have had to say, what he would have seen in this sudden change. He wondered how John had gotten them out of Limbo, how long he'd been under.

Arthur knows better than to ask though, just sits and wonders what had happened. "What about Eames, how is he doing?" John asks, and the words send a wave of worry through Arthur. "He's sleeping right now, it doesn't look too bad, but he'll have to go through rehabilitation." Arthur sighs. "Arthur, you know this shit is none of my business, and usually I would keep out of it, but-" John pauses a moment, to look at Arthur, and out of politeness he returns the gaze. He wishes he hadn't though, John's eyes are too calm, too steady, and it unnerves him. "Well, you do know, he fucking loves you, right?" John's words are like ice cold water splashed in his face, and he doesn't know he's not breathing till his lungs burn. He feels hot, and knows he's gone pale, and no. This couldn't be right. "D-don't say things, when you have no idea what you are talking about Sheppard. He's not." And it sounds like a desperate lie even to him. He wants to believe it so badly though, but John isn't going to let him. "He'd give it up for you." But Arthur doesn't want him to, would never want to take that from Eames, because he has no right to, no right to ask, and he should have said no, should have turned Eames down in the very beginning.

Arthur turns, looks out the window to watch the sky, watches the planes fly home, and feels time slipping away. John sits silently beside him, until his flight is called for boarding. Arthur looks up when John stills to stand in front of him. "You're too smart to fuck this shit up like I do Arthur." John sighs, shoulders slouched in typical slacker-defeat, it had been John's default stance since Arthur had met him. "Eames isn't though, he's an idiot, don't let him make any decisions." John turns then, leaves Arthur in the empty hallway. Arthur stays, waits till he sees John's plane taxi by the window too, waits till he really is alone. There was so much left to do that day, so much, and time was ticking past, he couldn't afford to just let it slip him by anymore.


	13. Chapter 13

John lets his eyes rest as the plane finally starts moving off the run way. He's splurged enough to book first class, and tilting his seat toward the window gives him near perfect seclusion. Unless the person in the front of him spun their chair around, he was relatively safe for the rest of the flight into LAX. So it was with some confussion that he was woken from his light slumber by the hand resting on his knee. He expects the stewardess asking him if he needed a blanket, not the bright blue eyes, looking at him, knowing him. He's fiddling with the poker chip in his pocket before he can even stop himself. McKay's eyes narrow then, sharp, and that was more the way it was supposed to be. "I wasn't sure, not at first, you know. But I mean, stranger things have happened to me." McKay leans back in his seat, and John doesn't need his totem to know this was all devastatingly real.

"Will you come work for me -now-?" McKay asks and there is no attempt to hide it now, what it meant, exacttly how deeply he was wanted. "Not the Air Force, come work for me John. I... we'll probably never make it back there, I can't promise, but we can try." Rodney, and it will always be Rodney now. "Is it really like that?" John knows he's going to accept, even before Rodney answers, he has no other choice. "It's better, I wish I could show you." Rodney's voice hides so much, but John can read the promises, the hopes and veiled dreams under it all. They are both broken, so very broken, hateful and spite, but John can see what lays beneath the surface, and he wants it, wants every bit.

"You don't care, about what we took? You're not going to seek retribution or something?" John asks, and feels Rodney pat his leg. "I'll just buy out the company you were working for, it doesn't really matter to me. You're the one who saw everything important. The codes are just... codes. I can do damage control on that. You're the one... you were the one who saw what mattered, and by all intents, I think that went both ways." Rodney breaks gaze, John can read the shyness though, the self-doubt, the need that was masked in indifferance, in egotism. "It was all me Rodney, months of it." John's words gift him with something he was afraid he'd never see again, happiness in soft blue eyes. Of course there was still distrust, so much anger, so much pain, but neither of them were perfect. They'd have to work on that, but they would do it together at least, John was through with running.

Three years later and they are standing in a ruined city, so much dammage, so much water, but it was their city, and they would repair it, make it live again. Privatized, the military couldn't touch their city, as McKay Industries had bought up the rights to work with Atlantis. No one had wanted it anyway, as the Pegasus Galaxy was thought a dead-zone, and Atlantis was a write-off. It took them so long, and it will take them even longer, but one day, eventually, the halls of their city will have life again pooling through them.

John wont give up till Rodney had the life he always should have, had the city John should have helped him rebuild, and yeah, he'd been right all along, he wasn't -that- John, but this was -his- Rodney, so really in the end, what did it even matter? His Rodney, and his city, and his sky, freedom in all three, and John finally knew what it was like to maybe not be so broken.

* * *

Arthur stands under the tree, stairing morosely up at the small yellow tabby cat that seemed very disinclined to come down to him. He'd spent a few months in South America with Eames, helping him recover because the Brit couldn't actually go back into America yet after the job he'd pulled right before the McKay job. Which meant now his cat didn't even know him, and Cobb was laughing at him from the house. He's tempted to climb up into the tree, but is relativley certain that doing so would either result in a broken leg, or a face full of angry cat. He wraps his arms around himself and morosely walks back up to the house. Dom is sitting, legs up on the balcony railing, and Arthur moves to sit down beside him. "You're staying for dinner aren't you Arthur? The kids would like to see their Uncle you know, you've been gone for so long." Dom loooks so happy, so content, and it puts Arthur at ease. There is still a pain there, but he didn't think it would ever go away, but Dom looked -happy- at least, and it was still sort of new to Arthur, he'd not seen it regularly for so very long.

"Of course, I brought presents." Arthur picks at a few blades of grass that had clung to his pants after he'd chased his cat through the bushes. "Eames picked out a beatiful festival doll for Phillipa." Arthur looks up at the setting sun and smiles a bit, memories of the festival itself filtering through, Dom wasn't the only one who had learned how to smile again. "Where is Eames anyway? I thought you were bringing him along?" Dom asks, Arthur is relativley sure that Dom can tell they are together now, Dom always could read him a little too well. "He's securing a hotel room, he bargains better than I do." Arthur stays completely still, he can feel the soft furred body weaving against his pant legs. A few minutes later and Freud has jumped up into his lap and settled down. Arthur had always liked cats, he just couldn't understand them very well.

They sit in companionable silence till Eames arrives, all loud bluster and stories, regailing Cobb with the excitement of life so far, and yes, Arthur thinks with a smile, it was worth the pain, just to have Eames in his life. Worth a whispered sentiment to hear one in return, and he wouldn't give this up for the world.

* * *

_Arthur's Untilited-Titled Soundtrack:_

_Metronomy- She Wants_

_Final Fantasy- Many Lives- 49MP_

_Beirut- Nantes_

_-Eames' Hidden track- _

_Lady Gaga- Paparazzi_


End file.
